Making Blockchain Dreams A Reality

In the blockchain space, there are a lot of people who have some big ideas regarding how to use this disruptive new technology. Unfortunately, big ideas often cost big bucks, and there are a lot of brilliant tech heads who don’t have the financial resources to make their decentralized visions a reality. Sadly, this means we could be missing out on some innovative and useful new ways to help the blockchain world progress.

The Ethereum Community Fund

Fortunately, there is the Ethereum Community Fund (ECF), to make sure the best and brightest in the blockchain community aren’t left out in the cold. The ECF is a nonprofit initiative that is designed to give both guidance and financial support to those working to create decentralized technologies. Critical infrastructure, open source development advocacy, and education initiatives are just a few of the areas the fund supports.

The non-profit’s primary goal is to work toward mainstream adoption of decimalized technologies and also grow the Ethereum ecosystem.

For those wondering who’s behind the initiative, the ECF’s founding members include Ethereum-based projects such as Golem, Cosmos, OmiseGo, Global Brain Blockchain Labs, Maker, and Raiden.

The fund’s advisors included blockchain heavy hitters like OmiseGo managing director Vansa Chatikavanij and Vitalik Buterin – the co-founder and face of Etherum.

Projects that wish to be considered for a grant from the Ethereum Community Fund must meet the following requirements:

Be a shared public good and useful to others in the ecosystem, i.e., not only benefiting a single entity.

Not have an immediate plan to seek funding through equity or token sale models (however, we will not limit the option to do so in the future, if and when the need for additional funding presents itself).

In general, grants range anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000. After 6 months, a project may be eligible for additional funds, if sufficient progress has been made.

Those with initiatives that are likely to exceed the $100,000 threshold are still encouraged to apply – though a co-grant with another organization may be required to ensure financial needs are met.

As for specifics, here are some examples of proposals the ECF has decided to get behind:

Patrick McCorry:

With the help of a $100,000 ECF grant, Patrick McCorry is working on making state/ payment channels on the Ethereum faster and more secure than ever before. According to Medium, “His collaboration and research with other key projects will lead to the Systemisation of Knowledge of current state channels research and implementations.”

Universal Logins:

Alex Van De Sande is the man behind Universal Logins. The venture, which was aided by a $25,000 grant, is designed to help increase the Ethereum usability. It will achieve this goal “by creating a login system that uses ENS for usernames, and a client-side private keys management system to sign and send messages to a contract holding funds.”

Juejin Ethereum Community:

This group is headed by a team based in Beijing and is dedicated to growing the Ethereum community in the city. They are also focused on helping project growth in China and help with translations. The Juejin Ethereum Community received a $39,500 grant from the ECF to get the ball rolling.

These are just a few examples of the many activities this fund has helped in its relatively short existence.

Initiatives like the Ethereum Community Fund will no doubt go a long way toward speeding up blockchain’s continued journey toward mainstream adoption.

Fidelity Investment is one of the largest asset management firms in the world. And they’ve shown affection for blockchain and crypto before. Now they are taking it a step further, and making some real progress in their business on the blockchain.